To all the Dems out there who are sick of President Obama, I think I get it. [View all]

[Zalatix]

You're not interested in voting for him because of the NDAA (in which the indefinite detention section has been thrown out by a Federal judge, mind you ), the use of combat drones, and the ever-expanding use of extrajudicial summary executions on pesky brown people who aren't US citizens (wait, no, two of them were, in fact).

You cannot in good conscience vote for a President that so thoroughly violates your principles. You refuse to compromise what you feel is an open and shut case of right vs wrong. I for one do not see 'purist' to be an insult here.

Well, I am sure that many have spoken their pragmatist approach to this, so I'll keep it short: I'm voting for President Obama to prevent even WORSE abominations of civil liberties and further violations of the global cause of human rights, from happening. Mitt Robme is going to have a far larger list of people to subject to summary executions, and I won't vote third party just because I don't want to split the anti-Robme vote.

Grant you, I totally admire your moral consistency. It hurts me to have to take the pragmatist route, even if it would hurt worse to see Robme win and the world go totally to shit with no way of getting back out. At least Obama is going downhill with the foot on the brakes; you may not think he is, at least until you're in Robme's car and he's got his foot burying the accelerator through the floorboard. You will know, under his regime, what "Full Scream Ahead" really means.

I know it's hard for you to do this, but can we all please just support President Obama for now and come back to this in 2016? Then all the pragmatists and purists alike can for once agree: we will ALL fight during the Primary for a liberal candidate that will, among other things, repeal the indefinite detention clause of the NDAA (unless the Supreme Court does), and scale back or put an end to summary executions.

Meanwhile, right now, we can all pledge to fight together, pragmatists and purists, to elect liberal Democrats at the local and statewide level.

I know it won't be easy pushing this message here, considering that a number of purists have been attacked, and a few have had their posts hidden, and some perhaps even PPR'd, because of the maddeningly crazy situation where purism would put you at TOS-level odds with Obama'12. It's maddening because I know you're loyal liberal Democrats who are standing by your beliefs and to stand by your principles is to elect Robme by default. I am not sure if all of my fellow pragmatists understand the pain of compromising your principles to prevent an abomination from entering the White House. (I'm sure some of you understand, but not all.) There's going to be some very bad blood between the purists and pragmatists and I don't know how we can heal that. And asking the purists to go pragmatist for 2012 is an outright slap to their face, I know this.

Somewhere the Devil (or the god of Capitalism, or whatever is the devil in your belief system) is laughing at this incredibly masterful act of divisiveness.

If I were the owner I would outright abolish the post-hiding and PPR'ing of purists, in favor of a case-by-case compromise. Hell, I'm already compromising my views to vote for Obama in 2012 to prevent Robme from winning; might as well compromise on that, too.